Cafe at Prairie Lights

Please join us for an exhibition reception with the artist
on Friday, February 5th from 6-8 PM at the cafe!

Artist's Exhibition Statement

The drawings, paintings and sculptures that comprise Something Came Up are reflections upon and responses to everyday experience. Interactions with nature and weathering processes become metaphors for human experience.

Materials are shaped by hand, machine, weather, and other creatures. The dowsing or divining rod is used as a symbol for search, discovery, and movement through landscape. Leaverites or glacial erratics (massive boulders transported and deposited by glaciers) reference movement and shaping of landscape. They are unexpected, strange, and have a deep sense of time. Elements of chance and limited control provide discoveries. Frost, as well as maggots, present in decaying walnut husks form lines in walnut dye drawings. Softer wood grain is removed by the exacerbated weathering process of sandblasting to find another form within a common piece of wood. Windshield wiper tracks and avalanche control barriers become symbols of resilience and limited control.

The work is an avenue for listening, processing, engaging with materials and inhabiting environments.

About the Artist

Jason Reno lives and works in Iowa City. Since receiving his MA and MFA in Sculpture from the University of Iowa in 2015 he has worked primarily as an artist assistant to David Dunlap.

An Exhibition by Kate Allen
On view from December 14, 2015 - January 31, 2016

Please join us for an exhibition reception with the artist
on Saturday, January 30th from 6-8 PM at the cafe!

Artist's Exhibition Statement:

Since I was a child I have had the habit of holding onto memories. I would try so hard to hold onto the good ones and relive them in my mind, only to have them fade too quickly. Conversely, I would try desperately hard to forget the difficult memories only to have them become more and more vivid in my mind.

My memories of bad experiences haunt me and keep me from moving on. I dwell on them all the time, and wish I could go back and change them, or at least move on. I find myself getting angry about events that happened years ago. I must be a masochist because I revisit objects or old diaries that remind me about these events for no reason other than to see what? Perhaps to see what I wrote, or remember how I felt, maybe even to put myself back into painful experiences?

I was talking with my husband a couple years ago, talking again about something that was still bothering me from my past, he suggested I try putting these disconcerting experiences into my work - to use this work as a way to finally realize these events and then put them away and move on.

In brainstorming I found the best way to carry out the idea was to use the still life as a vehicle for representing my struggle. I believe the tradition of the Still Life as a symbolic medium allowed me to communicate difficult moments in my life without literally recreating them. My photographs became a code for my memories involving sexual assault, broken relationships, regrets, insults, personal threats, loss, betrayal, natural disasters, and physical pain. I liked this idea, because a lot of my past work has dealt with viewers being able to bring their own experiences to the photographs and come up with their own read without me spelling out exactly what is going on.

I want to take these hard memories and create something beautiful from them. I want to turn them from ugly memories into something less frightening, even into comforting moments, like the good memories that we all try so desperately to hold onto.

To create beauty from my dwelling.

Most people will experience one or more of these events in their lifetime and just as my images have brought me a sense of “letting go” and “moving on” I am hoping that perhaps they might also reach out to someone else. Whether their damage is similar to mine or completely different, perhaps they can find answers in themselves or simply appreciate how beauty and order can emerge from something horrible.

About the Artist

Kate grew up in Japan, Okinawa, Colorado, and Korea as a daughter of an Air Force Officer. She holds an MFA in Photography from the University of Iowa and a Graduate Certificate in Book Arts from the University of Iowa Center for the Book. Her work has been shown in galleries around the United States and abroad.

My photography explores the hidden beauty found in non-traditional environments. The photos are generally given without reference or context, allowing the viewer to create his/her own narrative.

An Exhibition by Kevin Chamberlain
On view November 9 - December 13, 2015

Join us for an exhibition reception onDecember 11th from 6:30 - 8:30 PM!

Insects: A Collection of These Butterflies

stands by itself. apart of me/
created by me. a manifestation of a time
with me.
calculated time/ a cycle.
through which, i found it when it
found me.
its end/ we both knew.
its start/ again/ we must find.

About the Artist

Kevin Chamberlain is a local artist fascinated by the insect world. This collection of butterflies is a personal extension of Insects, his collaborative project with the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History and local Iowa schools that premiered in 2012. Kevin is a Preparator at the University of Iowa Museum of Art and for their Legacies for Iowa Collections Sharing Project. He holds a BFA from the University of North Dakota, and in 2012, he completed his MA and MFA in Ceramics with a minor in Jewelry and a Museum Studies Certificate at the University of Iowa. His work is collected and displayed nationally and internationally.

Please join us for an exhibition receptionon on Saturday, November 7th from 6 - 8 PM!

About the Exhibition

nAMUH is an imaginative story featuring 197 original works on paper by Iowa-City based artist Ryan Bentzinger. These drawings are part of the artists’ newly finished fine art novel. nAMUH, Book 1, will be self-published by the artist, and will be available at local stores by the winter of 2015-16.

This fine art novel explores a post-apocalyptic world full of mysteries and tales of hardship. Showcasing 13 works on paper from Chapters 2 and 3, a fellowship of characters unite and embark on their joint quest to find answers regarding the chaotic world in which they live. Why are children going missing? What are these rumors about robots living on the islands?

About the Artist

Ryan Bentzinger is a teaching artist based out of Iowa City. He graduated with a BA in Studio Art with Honors in Education from the University of Iowa in 2011. He has exhibited nationally and internationally and has work in the permanent collections of the Santiago Museum of Contemporary Art and the University Museums of the Iowa State University. Ryan has been the assistant to Chunghi Choo for the last five years and has been teaching Art at Willowwind School since 2012.

When he is not drawing, painting, and writing, he enjoys traveling, teaching, and advocating for the arts. Inspired by imaginative stories and societal phenomena, he continues to work toward his life-long goals of getting his Dwarf Ranger to level 20 in Pathfinder and becoming a Pokemon master.